[Decibel] Decibel and the Telepathy Spec - into the future...

[Tobias Hunger]

On Tuesday 25 November 2008 14:34:18 George Goldberg wrote:
> Ok, so I've done a bit of research into this problem and it seems that
> its been identified in the telepathy SPEC [1]. The solution that is
> suggested there makes a lot of sense to me. Basically, the Account
> Manager process should not install itself as a DBus autostart service,
> but instead the desktop environment should take care of starting the
> appropriate Account Manager process when a user logs on.

So accounts appear and vanish based on desktop environment started? That does 
not sound like a good idea to me. I'd really prefer decibel and the telepathy 
stuff to be able to run in parallel: Then the kde apps can see the KDE accounts 
(configured in decibel) and the gnome apps see the gnome accounts (from mission 
control) and everybody is happy.

> There could
> probably even be a KCM to allow configuration of this in the case that
> a user has multiple Account Manager implementations installed on the
> same computer.

1. How can you figure out that several implementations are available and which 
binaries to start? Basically all that springs to my mind is hardcoding a list 
of possible file names and that does not sound right to me.

2. How will having a KCM module make my kde-based accounts visible in empathy? 
Gnome will just ignore my KDE settings and just start up the telepathy mission 
control thingy anyway. We'd need some cross desktop standard on how to 
configure which D-Bus services to start. I am not aware of anything in that 
direction.

I do not see a really good solution. The best we can do is to at least 
consistently use one set of accounts (be that KDE or gnome based or whatnot) 
with each application. That is best done by having decibel and the mission 
control thing coexist peacefully.

Best Regards,
Tobias